Year B: First Sunday After Christmas

Surprisingly On Time

Following Advent and Christmas, there is one Sunday when some Christians celebrate the Holy Family before moving into Epiphany from January 6 up through the second week of February wherein the Lenten season begins. The Sunday after Christmas is still part of the Christmas story. If you’ve ever sung “The Twelve Days of Christmas” then you’re already somewhat familiar with this idea.

In the Revised Common Lectionary for Year B, the texts focus on how Jesus enables us all to become sons and daughters of God. Through taking on flesh and living fully human, the Logos is able to transform each of us into children of God too.

Year B, First Sunday After Christmas, December 31, 2023

First Reading: Isaiah 61:10-62:3

Psalm: Psalm 147 or Psalm 147:13-20

Second Reading: Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7

Gospel: John 1:1-18

Sermon - Surprisingly On Time

Have you ever thought of how improbable the story of Christmas is? When we read Matthew 1-2 or Luke 1-3, we may be tempted to pass over the genealogies, but these genealogies tell a story of loss, rejection, failure, exile, sin, pain, and death. But they also tell a story of redemption, acceptance, success, exodus, salvation, healing, and resurrection. This apparently harmless list of names briefly recounts the troubled history of Jesus’s people.

How could one ever imagine that the tragedy of Tamar or the stories of Gentiles like Rahab and Ruth could ever lead to the birth of the Son of God? How could the long line of treacherous, idolatrous, and sinful kings ever be part of the Mystery of God?

Yet, Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law…” (Galatians 4:4). Or as some versions paraphrase, “When the right time came…” or “the set time.” Jesus came into the world at the perfect time.

Occupation, exile, betrayal, deceit, murder… all of these stories are part of the Great Story. All of these tragedies, while not caused by God or approved of by God, were used by God to bring about salvation to all nations. In another passage, Paul talks about how Jesus retells or recapitulates all of the stories that came before him. All of them are summed up in him.

Think back on 2023. What comes to mind? If you were to look up a list of the most significant events of the year, most of them would probably be negative: banks collapsing, recessions, civil wars, invasions, and global temperature records being broken.

It can be quite depressing, can’t it?

When I think of the horrendous news coming out of Israel and Palestine, I can’t help but think how dark our world is.

But consider the words of Paul, “When the fullness of time had come…”

All of that negative history led up to the greatest thing in human history? All of that unfaithfulness…the wars…the loss…the exile…the occupation, and God could turn it into something positive all while forgiving and reconciling and saving humanity?

Jesus was surprisingly on time.

Now consider our world today. Could God not make something good out of this? One might wonder if the plans are already in motion, and I firmly believe they are. They were put into motion long ago, but these plans became evident when a little boy was born to a poor couple in Bethlehem.

Now consider your own life. You may have had a great year, but you also might be close to someone who didn't. Someone who lost their job or got that diagnosis or lost a friend or family member. These tragedies might be senseless. There may not be explanations to sufficiently comfort those who experienced these kinds of losses.

But there is a hope.

And that hope is that the Word who became flesh, died, and rose again lives within each of us. This “hope of glory” reveals that we are children of God regardless of who we are and what we have been through (Colossians 1:27).

If God can work in and through nations and families as dysfunctional as those in Jesus’s history and genealogy, then certainly God can and is working in our lives and in our time. All of the baggage we have that appears to make us irredeemable can actually be setting the stage for God’s work in our lives.

As we cross from 2023 to 2024, let’s embrace our calling as children of God, and let’s consent to the Spirit who works within each of us to affirm this calling and lead us towards a bright future made possible by Jesus’s birth, life, death, resurrection, and coming in his kingdom.

Reflections

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